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| Transliteration of Chinese |
|---|
| Mandarin |
| Wu |
| Yue |
| Min |
| Gan |
| Hakka |
| Xiang |
| Polylectal |
| See also |
Wong Shik-Ling (also known as S. L. Wong) published a romanisation scheme accompanying a set of phonetic symbols for Cantonese based on International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) in the book A Chinese Syllabary Pronounced according to the Dialect of Canton .
Cantonese, like a number of other varieties of Chinese is monosyllabic. Each syllable is divided into initial (consonant), final (vowel and following consonant) and tone.
Chinese phonology traditionally stresses on finals because it is related to rhymes in the composition of poems, proses and articles. There are 53 finals in Cantonese.
The ten basic vowel phoneme symbols [a], [ɐ], [ei], [ɛ], [i], [ou], [ɔ], [œ], [u] and [y] in the scheme mean following:
| International phonetic alphabet | [a] | [ɐ] | [eː] | [ɛ] | [i] | [oː] | [ɔ] | [œ] | [u] | [y] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S. L. Wong (phonetic symbol) | [a] | [ɐ] | [ei] | [ɛ] | [i] | [ou] | [ɔ] | [œ] | [u] | [y] |
| S. L. Wong (romanisation) | aa | a | ei | e | i | ou | o | eu | u | ue |
For detail explanation of the phonetic system, see S. L. Wong (phonetic symbols)#Vowels.
All vowel phonemes except a formed vowel 9 finals themselves.
Some vowel phonemes can followed by vowel phonemes -i, -u or -ue to form 8 falling diphthong finals:
| aa | a | ei | e | i | ou | o | eu | u | ue | |
| - | aa | ei | e | i | ou | o | eu | u | ue | |
| -i | aai | ai | oi | ui | ||||||
| -u | aau | au | iu | |||||||
| -ue | eue |
For detail explanation of the phonetic system, see S. L. Wong (phonetic symbols)#Falling diphthong finals.
The nasal consonants [m], [n] and [ŋ] in finals can be written as:
| International phonetic alphabet | [m] | [n] | [ŋ] |
|---|---|---|---|
| S. L. Wong (phonetic symbol) | [m] | [n] | [ŋ] |
| S. L. Wong (romanisation) | m | n | ng |
Some vowel phonemes can followed by nasal consonants -m, -n or -ng to form 17 nasal phoneme finals:
| aa | a | ei | e | i | ou | o | eu | u | ue | |
| -m | aam | am | im | |||||||
| -n | aan | an | in | on | eun | un | uen | |||
| -ng | aang | ang | eng | ing | ong | eung | ung |
For detail explanation of the phonetic system, see S. L. Wong (phonetic symbols)#Nasal phoneme finals.
The plosive final can be written [p], [t] and [k] as:
| International phonetic alphabet | [p] | [t] | [k] |
|---|---|---|---|
| S. L. Wong (phonetic symbol) | [p] | [t] | [k] |
| S. L. Wong (romanisation) | p | t | k |
Some vowel phonemes can followed by unaspirated plosive consonants -p, -t or -k to form 17 plosive phoneme finals:
| aa | a | ei | e | i | ou | o | eu | u | ue | |
| -p | aap | ap | ip | |||||||
| -t | aat | at | it | ot | eut | ut | uet | |||
| -k | aak | ak | ek | ik | ok | euk | uk |
For detail explanation of the phonetic system, see S. L. Wong (phonetic symbols)#Plosive phoneme finals.
For the nasal consonantoids fully voiced finals
[m] and [ŋ] in voiced form [m̩] and [ŋ̩] are also two finals in Cantonese.
| International phonetic alphabet | [m̩] | [ŋ̩] |
|---|---|---|
| S. L. Wong (phonetic symbol) | [m̩] | [ŋ̩] |
| S. L. Wong (romanisation) | m | ng |
For detail explanation of the phonetic system, see S. L. Wong (phonetic symbols)#Nasal consonantoids fully voiced finals.
Initials are made up of consonants. Most of characters are preceding finals with initials while some characters are pronounced without initials. There are 19 initials in total.
| International phonetic alphabet | [m] | [n] | [ŋ̩] | [p] | [t] | [k] | [kʷ] | [pʰ] | [tʰ] | [kʰ] | [kʷʰ] | [ts] | [tsʰ] | [f] | [s] | [h] | [j] | [w] | [l] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S. L. Wong (phonetic symbol) | [m] | [n] | [ŋ̩] | [b] | [d] | [g] | [gw] | [p] | [t] | [k] | [kw] | [dz] | [ts] | [f] | [s] | [h] | [j] | [w] | [l] |
| S. L. Wong (romanisation) | m | n | ng | b | d | g | gw | p | t | k | kw | dz | ts | f | s | h | y | w | l |
For detail explanation of the phonetic system, see S. L. Wong (phonetic symbols)#Initials.
There are basically nine tones in Cantonese. Tones play an important role to distinguish meanings in Cantonese. Tones also forms melodies in poem and prose composition.
There are two ways to mark tones in the scheme. One is by number and another by marks.
It is hard to type the tones by typewriters. It therefore simply uses the one in the phonetic symbols for reference.
| level | rising | going | entering | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| upper | ˈx (1) | ˈx (7) | upper | ||
| ˊx (2) | ˉx (3) | ˉx (8) | middle | ||
| lower | ˏx (5) | ˍx (6) | ˍx (9) | lower | |
| ˌx (4) |
For detail explanation of the phonetic system, see S. L. Wong (phonetic symbols)#Tones.
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